Top Abu Sayyaf leader held

=Filipino anti-terrorist forces arrested a leader of the hostage-taking Abu Sayyaf group in the remote southern Tawi-Tawi province late Friday, belated military reports said yesterday.

Elite soldiers swooped down on a ferry boat off Tawi-Tawi and arrested Binang Andang.

He was one of the Abu Sayyaf leaders who kidnapped Jeffrey Schilling, a 25-year old Californian who married a Filipina-Muslim in Jolo in 2001.

Andang was pinpointed as a key figure in the kidnappings of 53 mostly students and teachers in Basilan island in 2000.

The forces were led by Capt. Feliciano Angue, commander of a naval Anti-terrorist Task Force 62, and Marine Col. Juancho Saban, leader of the National Anti-Terrorist Task Force unit, the report said.

Assorted weapons and explosives were seized from Andang. He has a one million peso bounty on his head and is included in the government's most wanted list, the report said, adding the arrest was the result of a long military surveillance operation that began in Basilan island.

The military said Andang is a relative of detained Abu Sayyaf leader Galib Andang who is accused of leading a raid on the Malaysian resort of Sipadan in April 2000 and seizing a group of Western tourists and resort workers. The hostages were released after millions of dollars in ransom was reportedly paid by Libya.

Meanwhile, three members of the Abu Sayyaf Group were arrested in separate places this week, the Southern Command said.

Two of them, identified as Musar Ansar and Abrar Engliong, were suspected as Abu Sayyaf bombers. Their arrest had foiled an attack in Zamboanga City, authorities said, adding they were implicated in the kidnapping of dozens of Christian preachers in Jolo island in August 2002.

One of them Nidjal Pajiran, a suspected Abu Sayyaf leader, has been planning to kidnap for money unnamed wealthy traders in Zamboanga, a developed southern port.

Pajiran was arrested at a government checkpoint, while the two were nabbed at an Abu Sayyaf hideout, the military said.

"The Southern Command has pre-empted an imminent kidnapping and terrorist activity in Zamboanga City," said the military. Manila blamed the Abu Sayyaf for the series of terror attacks in the south. The United States listed the group as a foreign terrorist organisation after it killed two kidnapped American nationals Guillermo Sobero and Martin Burnhan in the southern Philippines.

In May 2001, the Abu Sayyaf stormed the upscale Philippine resort of Dos Palmas, seizing United States missionary couple Martin and Gracia Burnham, American tourist Guillermo Sobero and 17 Filipino workers and tourists.

Gracia Burnham was wounded in a commando rescue in June 2002, but her husband and a Filipino nurse were killed.

She returned to Manila this week to testify against her abductors.

Before returning to the United States late Friday, Burnham said in a statement that she testified because, "I would love to see your fair land free from terror."

Sobero and two Filipino workers were beheaded by the guerrillas and the others were ransomed off, released or escaped.

A US-backed counter-terrorism offensive has resulted in the killing of several key Abu Sayyaf leaders and the capture of many members.